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There are many issues here. First a history lesson, how many times have “good, willed people” identified something like a food desert and determined if only another store opened the local population would support it. Everyone thought the Cubs foods in the Medows off 38th street would be that place. More food was stolen than bought and it lasted a few years. Is a store needed? Probably, can you force people to support it? No. To be honest, money would be better spent supporting the food pantries such as the one operating by the old zoo location. Show up any morning they are operating, and you can’t find a parking spot.
Safeway Stores support five neighborhoods and are doing very well. They have competitive prices and are the only store in the city with a full service meat department. Their fried chicken is the best in town!
So a couple of organizations with no experience in a low margin business dove in head first and tasked operations to a couple of guys whose previous experience was managing a staff 1/10th of the size of this location. How could it have gone wrong, one wonders?
First, the definition of a “Food Desert” is flawed. The term sounds ominous with its imagery of vast swaths of starving citizens trapped in a wasteland and then you realize that many areas, both affluent and poor, do not have a grocery store within 1 mile of their home. If you expand the definition to 1.5 or 1.7 mi, then virtually no one lives in a so-called food desert. 1 mile or 1.5 mile, if someone is unable to travel this distance, then it is a transportation issue that should be solved another way.
Second, just using the prices listed in this article, these independent groceries are charge 31% more than their competition. If a family spends $300/week on groceries, that is $4,835 more per year for a family already struggling to make ends meet. Do the neighbors freely pay a $5K/yr self-imposed tax just to help keep the doors open or do they focus on putting food on the table for their family? IMO, these stores drain resources and are a disservice the community.
Bingo. This is a transportation issue that could be solved by giving people Uber vouchers to travel to the Aldi store at 52/Keystone or 56/Pendleton Pike. Or vouchers to pay delivery fees on online orders at Kroger.
Chris B. has the real problem identified. It is not a food desert, it is a transportation issue. Opening grocery stores in so called “food deserts” (defined by within one mile) is a flawed concept. If it was ever attempted to have a grocery within one mile of where everyone lives it would never work. We see now, in only two attempts, that it is not working. Has anyone tried to determine what percent of the population is affected by the lack of groceries within one mile? I submit that the number is so small as to be immeasurable. We have transportation alternatives, we have multiple delivery options, we have friends and family, and expand the definition to two miles and the “food desert” vanishes. The time of the neighborhood grocery store started to go away in the 1950’s and will not be returning.
I like the concept, but if a Food Desert is residents without a grocery within 1 mile, I live in a Food Desert in Greenfield. However, I am not in a food desert. We have three Dollar General Stores in town, a Kroger, Walmart and Aldi, all within a mile of each other and other options in town. However, I love on Main Street and none of these are within a mile from me. I disagree with this definition.
Most of us in the ‘burbs are 2 miles or more from a grocery.
The issue is whether someone owns or has access to a car…transportation.